DIGEST - Volume 10, Issue 3-FULL DIGEST

15 TPC Digest Jacob Olsen, Sejal Parikh Foxx, Claudia Flowers A Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the School Counselor Knowledge and Skills Survey for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support T he school counselor’s role in schools has evolved significantly over the years. The 2019 American School Counselor Association (ASCA) National Model outlines the core components of a school counseling program and the school counselor’s role in defining, managing, delivering, and assessing their program. Overall, school counselors implement a program designed to meet the academic, career, and social/emotional needs of all students. In the past decade, school counselors have also been called to align their programs with multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS)—a framework that is widely implemented in schools across the nation. The MTSS framework focuses on providing instruction and interventions along three tiers of support, including Tier 1 for all students, Tier 2 for some students, and Tier 3 for a few students needing individualized and intensive support. R esearchers have established how to align school counseling programs and MTSS and the school counselor’s role in this work. Because the benefits of school counseling program and MTSS alignment are clear and widely accepted, there is a call for increased pre-service and in-service school counseling training to increase school counselors’ MTSS knowledge and skills. Although many states and school districts across the nation have provided professional development, there is a lack of clarity about how much school counselors know and what their skill level is in relation to developing, implementing, and assessing the systems and practices that are essential to school counseling program and MTSS alignment. The primary challenge to establishing school counselors’ MTSS knowledge and skills is a lack of validated measures available. T o address the need for validated measures, the School Counselor Knowledge and Skills Survey for Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (SCKSS) described in this manuscript was developed and validated to provide counselor educators, state and district leaders, and practicing school counselors with a psychometrically sound measure of school counselors’ knowledge and skills for MTSS that is aligned with the ASCA National Model and best practices related to MTSS. The SCKSS can be used to assess pre-service and in-service school counselors’ MTSS knowledge and skills, identify strengths and areas in need of improvement, and support targeted school counselor training and professional development focused on school counseling program and MTSS alignment. Jacob Olsen, PhD, is an assistant professor at California State University Long Beach. Sejal Parikh Foxx, PhD, is a professor and Chair of the Department of Counseling at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Claudia Flowers, PhD, is a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Correspondence may be addressed to Jacob Olsen, College of Education, 1250 Bellflower Boulevard, Long Beach, CA 90840-2201, jacob.olsen@csulb.edu. | TPC Digest